After three albums under the name RTX, Jennifer Herrema and her bunch decided to flip the script, to kick open the doors of perception a little bit. See, RTX was not Royal Trux, not a metal band, not a 70’s bar band and not a toxic substance; RTX was something, all of those things and none of them and way more, including Black Bananas bubbling in a witchy cauldron of their own herbaceousbrew. The title of a song on their RaTX album detailed a bit of the recipe, taking elements often tossed aside or thrown all the way out and combining them into something new and worthwhile…a new strain of the almighty green — to feed and elevate the hungry ones.

“I’m your garbage collector
I’ll turn your trash to gold
What you cast off is what I hold,
End loafs of bread, black bananas and broken crackers
Scratched records, too dark pictures and torn jeans
All the shit that rips at the seams”

Black Bananas is set for the next all-inclusive rock and roll crusade, the one that includes even and especially all the shit you don’t like, woven into all the shit you can’t live without. This has been the name of Jennifer’s game from day one; she owns the blueprints and if you don’t know by now, don’t even bother to Google it, cuz understanding is an investment not an action. Jennifer Herrema is not schizophrenic nor does she don many hats. She is simply a singer and simultaneously, a pioneer of comprehensive non-exclusive opposition rock, and Black Bananas is the latest addition to the oeuvre.

Brian Mckinley, Kurt Midness, Jaimo Welch , and Nadav Eisenman have been ripping and running with Jennifer since 2002, when one by one, they gathered serendipitously, borne by curiosity and the courage to be part of something new. Each passing RTX record saw them wrapped ever tighter in the burgeoning tongue of their own creation. Now, uttering their twisted slang fluently as a unified dialect, they emerge as Black Bananas.

If you wanna hedge (-fund) your bets its best to get out in front of this new natio nal currency they are creating with Black Bananas. These are the notes of the future; with Jennifer at the helm their worth will grow exponentially. Invest!

Black Bananas first album Rad Times Xpress IV runs the gamut from gnarly odes to reality TV in songs like “My House” to future electric metallic GoGo sounds all conceived with scraps of influence from Jennifer’s childhood passions zig-zagged with other currents out there, creating a sound that will take you to a specific place that only Black Bananas know how to find.

Most of all, Black Bananas is the new band in town — and they’re fucking righteous.

Magik Markers [Drag City - Hartford, CT]
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The Magik Markers are a noise rock band from Hartford, Connecticut. The members, Elisa Ambrogio, Pete Nolan and Leah Quimby started the band in their basement in 2001. The band gained wider recognition after opening for Sonic Youth on their American tour in 2004. Their debut album, I Trust My Guitar, Etc... (released in vinyl only), was released in 2005 on Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace label. In 2006, they releasedA Panegyric To The Things I Do Not Understand under Gulcher Records, the Markers' first proper CD. Also in 2006, the band recorded a session for Southern records' Latitudes series, which was released as The Voldoror Dance. Leah Quimby left in May 2006. Various people filled in before they eventually settled as a duo composed of original members Pete and Elisa. In September 2007, the band released Boss, which was produced by Lee Ranaldo. This record was the most structured recording the Markers had released to date. Following in the wake of the Textile release For Sada Jane and the Road Pussy CD-R, the band set out to more accurately capture the sound of Magik Markers practices and jams, as opposed to the performance driven chaos of live shows.

Magik Markers have since toured the US and Europe several times. As a part of the Threelobed subscription series they released Gucci Rapidshare Download in 2008. Since their inception Peter Nolan (through his Arbitrary Signs imprint) has consistently produced limited release cdr and tape snapshot documents of the Magik Markers studio/4-track recordings and live performances, all with original handmade artwork, intended for a small audience. With the increasing ubiquity of file sharing, the entire catalogue of long out of print cdrs became readily available.Gucci Rapidshare Download was created by downloading Magik Markers cdrs from websites where they had been posted and remixing and recontextualizing the sounds with newly recorded and archival material. In the same way the Magik Markers have at times blurred the line between performer and audience live, here they have attempted to switch out the authority of the producer and creator with the perceived ownership of the listener. Though no effort of the people who originally created it, music that was intended to be temporal, such as performance, or a cdr duct taped to a piece of cardboard, has become digitally permanent and musical recordings intended to be 'permanent' pieces have become disposable through the authority of the listener. The cd cover features a christ-like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar floating to a rookie dunk shot and a faceless picture of Elisa and Pete by a dumpster. In addition to the Markers, longtime collaborators Ben Chasny, Joshua Burkett and John Shaw play on the record. Production is co-credited to Elisa Ambrogio and Ben Chasny.

In 2008 Magik Markers played for the first time in Scotland, Austria, Ireland, Latvia and Wales. Jefferson Hack invited the Magik Markers to perform live from Studio A at Abbey Road in London, as part of Nick Kent's ShowStudio project. Magik Markers traveled to Nitra, Estonia to appear in (award winning director of Sugisball) Veiko Ounpuu's upcoming film. Peter Nolan was honored to again play drums in Jandek's band alongside Matt Heyner in London, and Elisa Ambrogio joined Six Organs of Admittance on a US and two European tours. Peter Nolan's Spectre Folk played their first UK tour, with Julie Tomlinson and John Truscinski. While not touring Elisa Ambrogio recorded an LP and performed with San Francisco Dirty Stealer (featuring members of Comets on Fire) and contributed short pieces of writing to various projects. In the winter of 2008 the Magik Markers recorded a new record titled Balf Quarry with Grammy winning producer and wizard Scott Colburn of Seattle. Balf Quarry was released in May 2009 onDrag City. Magik Markers have been chosen as one of the "Best New Bands" of Connecticut by Boston Phoenix Annual 50 Best Bands in America.

Duane Warr (Dwarr) recorded two albums in the early 80’s in South Carolina before going totally over the edge in an Alcohol and drug induced frenzy whilst recording his third (unreleased) album. The legend has it that Mr. Warr burned all his gear, mastertapes and remaining copies of the records shortly after the release of “Animals” and became a Christian, but there are some rumors of 2 more CDs from the early 90’s released. Also, there seem to be both a ‘proper’ reissue of the 2 first albums available from Black Widow records as well as a pretty professional looking double-CDR bootleg (“Cannabinol - The Bootleg”) circulating. 

This is over-the-top psychedelic doom-metal-insanity — dark, brooding, and totally whacked out. The sound is somewhat like a retarded drug-addled attempt at SABBATH with insane guitar solos and excursions into the most depressing, suicidal sounds ever laid to tape. The two DWARR LP’s are truly some of the strangest metal records of all time. They definitely don’t sound like anything else, and the guy comes off as clearly disturbed.